A Publication of Gospel Commission Issue 1 August 2013 Page 22
A Publication of Gospel Commission Issue 1 August 2013 Page 24
With no jobs, education opportunities, or other prospects in sight, many young people leave this area as soon as they have a chance. The people who had remained were mostly old and vulnerable, like the grandmothers we saw across the road, struggling under the weight of their heavy bags. As we offered to help carry them, they explained to us they had nobody else to do it for them. The plight of an old lady Such was the situation of the old and frail grandmother we found. We called her Koko (grandma in the local language). Her daughter-in-law, who used to take care of her, had run away. She remained here with her son, who was out during the day. We found her all alone in her small tin shack, a stuffy room that smelled awful and had heated up like an oven in the scorching mid-day sun. On days like these, when her son had not taken her outside, she would just be stuck here, calling for anyone passing by to please come help her into her wheelchair, take her outside and allow her to get some much-needed fresh air in the shade of her favourite tree. When we met, she told me how she had been praying, for God to please send someone. It was obvious that she was living in extreme poverty. She had no electricity, and while some of our patients still owned a simple paraffin stove, grandma Koko did not even have that. So we gathered firewood and made a fire outside her shack, to warm water for her to bath. It was such a joyous moment when we washed her for the first time. To watch this old frail lady dance and praise God for the simple fact that water was running over her body. She later told us she had not received a bath in over a month. We washed her clothes, combed her hair and
cut her long nails that had started to curl. After we were done with her, she looked so much happier and healthier, almost as if she was a different woman.
Working with Ntate Peter Ntate Peter and I got along well once he discovered I could not speak Sotho – his language – so there was no need for him to struggle to speak it. When I tried out the few greetings I had learned, he burst out into laughter. From then on, laughter became his way of communicating. While he did not seem to have much faith in our therapies, he was willing to try out anything we suggested, so we started doing hydrotherapy with him, to try and stimulate the nerves in his arm. As we went on with that, we also read accounts from the Bible to him, of situations where God had healed people. We shared our faith that the same God who did these things in the past was still here today, and that if it was His will, and we would sincerely pray and continue with the treatments He had given us, anything would be possible. At the end of every treatment we always did the same exercise. I would put a t-shirt on the table and ask him to put his hand on it and try to make a ball by gathering it. Time and time again, we looked on with eager anticipation. But he could not move. Not even one finger. Inspiring and heartbreaking With other patients the results came so quickly that even I, as a believer, thought I was witnessing a placebo-effect. There was this other old lady, who on the second day of our treatment told us how great she felt and how the pain in her legs was now gone. I first thought she might just be saying so to please us. But one day when we came to her house, she had refused her kids to use her last paraffin to cook her porridge, so that we could use it to heat the water for her treatment.